Anthem is Ayn Rand’s “hymn to man’s ego.” It is the story of one man’s rebellion against a totalitarian, collectivist society. Equality 7-2521 is a young man who yearns to understand “the Science of Things.” But he lives in a bleak, dystopian future where independent thought is a crime and where science and technology have regressed to primitive levels.

All expressions of individualism have been suppressed in the world of Anthem; personal possessions are nonexistent, individual preferences are condemned as sinful and romantic love is forbidden. Obedience to the collective is so deeply ingrained that the very word “I” has been erased from the language.

In pursuit of his quest for knowledge, Equality 7-2521 struggles to answer the questions that burn within him — questions that ultimately lead him to uncover the mystery behind his society’s downfall and to find the key to a future of freedom and progress.

AynRand.Org

Ayn Rand Campus

ANTHEM ESSAY CONTEST FOR 9TH AND 10TH GRADERS

Are you teaching Anthem this year? Why not encourage your students to enter the Ayn Rand Institute essay contest?

ARI has held worldwide essay contests for students on Ayn Rand’s fiction for thirty years. This year, across all our contests, we will award over 500 prizes totaling more than $90,000 in prize money.

As a thank-you from ARI, teachers who submit at least ten essays during the 2015 – 2016 school year will receive gifts. So if you are planning to require your students to enter one of our contests, or if you know that a number of your students will enter, we encourage you to collect their essays and send them to us as a package.

The setting is Soviet Russia, early 1920s. Kira Argounova, a university engineering student who wants a career building bridges, falls in love with Leo Kovalensky, son of a czarist hero. Both Kira and Leo yearn to shape their own future — but they are trapped in a communist state that claims the right to sacrifice individual lives for the sake of the collective.

When Kira is kicked out of the university as an undesirable and Leo’s past makes him unemployable, life becomes a grim struggle for physical survival. Leo contracts tuberculosis but can’t get admitted to a state sanitarium, despite Kira’s best efforts. Desperate, she seeks help from Andrei Taganov, an ardent young communist whose love for Kira helps awaken him to the meaning of genuine personal values, not to be surrendered for others’ sake.

What will happen as these three struggle to be living individuals in defiance of the power of the collectivist state?

AynRand.Org

Ayn Rand Campus

In her first notes for The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand describes its purpose as “a defense of egoism in its real meaning . . . a new definition of egoism and its living example.” She later states its theme as “individualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in man’s soul; the psychological motivations and the basic premises that produce the character of an individualist or a collectivist.”

The “living example” of egoism is Howard Roark, “an architect and innovator, who breaks with tradition, [and] recognizes no authority but that of his own independent judgment.” Roark’s individualism is contrasted with the spiritual collectivism of many of the other characters, who are variations on the theme of “second-handedness” — thinking, acting and living second-hand.

Roark struggles to endure not merely professional rejection, but also the enmity of Ellsworth Toohey, beloved humanitarian and leading architectural critic; of Gail Wynand, powerful publisher; and of Dominique Francon, the beautiful columnist who loves him fervently yet is bent on destroying his career.

The Fountainhead earned Rand a lasting reputation as one of history’s greatest champions of individualism.

Ayn Rand Campus

The Fountainhead Essay Contest for 11th and 12th Graders

Are you teaching The Fountainhead this year? Why not encourage your students to enter the Ayn Rand Institute essay contest?

ARI has held worldwide essay contests for students on Ayn Rand’s fiction for thirty years. This year, across all our contests, we will award over 500 prizes totaling more than $90,000 in prize money.

As a thank-you from ARI, teachers who submit at least ten essays during the 2015 – 2016 school year will receive gifts. So if you are planning to require your students to enter one of our contests, or if you know that a number of your students will enter, we encourage you to collect their essays and send them to us as a package.

For a printable flyer of the 2016 The Fountainhead essay contest, click here.

AynRand.Org

Ayn Rand Campus

Atlas Shrugged essay Contest for 12th Graders, College Undergraduates and Graduate Students

Are you teaching Atlas Shrugged this year? Why not encourage your students to enter the Ayn Rand Institute essay contest?

ARI has held worldwide essay contests for students on Ayn Rand’s fiction for thirty years. This year, across all our contests, we will award over 500 prizes totaling more than $90,000 in prize money.

As a thank-you from ARI, teachers who submit at least ten essays during the 2015 – 2016 school year will receive gifts. So if you are planning to require your students to enter one of our contests, or if you know that a number of your students will enter, we encourage you to collect their essays and send them to us as a package.

Suggested Course

Course

Anthem

This course on Ayn Rand’s Anthem provides a story overview and character analysis, background material on Rand and the era in which she wrote, a discussion of the story’s themes, and brief comparisons to Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World.

Instructor

Keith Lockitch

Course Length

10 Lessons

Further Reading

Robert Mayhew | 2005

Essays on Ayn Rand’s “Anthem”

An edited collection of essays on the historical, literary and philosophical aspects of Rand’s 1938 novella.